Inside the Mind of BTK

262 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
Lundin told me that he had tried to make sense of the expression
he glimpsed in Rader’s face on that afternoon. But what he saw there
defied any permutation of evil he’d ever encountered.
“A long time ago, I heard someone describe a Nazi war criminal
in a way that I think works for Rader,” he said. “They referred to him
as an ‘unfinished soul.’ I can’t think of a better term—unfinished soul.
Just seems to fit. This guy just doesn’t have the capability to care, and
I have no idea why. Normally, with these guys, you can link it back to
their childhood. But his was so average and run-of-the-mill, it doesn’t
make sense. He was proud of what he did. Didn’t have a single shred of
sadness or remorse—not even for himself. He had nothing. Absolutely
nothing.”
It was all over in two minutes. Lundin handed Rader off to several
officers in bulletproof vests who hustled the handcuffed man to
a nearby brown Chevy Impala with tinted windows, parked up the
street. Landwehr sat in the backseat. By this point, Rader’s look of
aggression had disappeared, and he appeared dazed.
Rader later told one of my sources that it had all gone down so
quickly that he couldn’t understand what had happened. He never saw
it coming, he confided. He racked his brain, trying to figure out where
he’d slipped up.
Landwehr told me that the moment he laid eyes on Rader, he
thought the guy looked confused, lost in thought. When the back door
to the Impala opened, Rader peered inside expectantly and looked
relieved when he spotted the familiar-looking face he had seen on TV
press conferences.
“What happened then?” I asked. “You were about to come faceto-face
with the guy you’d been looking for for over two decades.”
Landwehr took a deep breath and sighed. “He looked in at me
and said, ‘Hey, Mr. Landwehr.’ So I replied, ‘Good afternoon, Mr.
Rader.’ ”
At that instant, for a few brief moments the world outside grew
muffled and still. Suddenly it was just the two of them—Dennis and
Ken. Just the way my source told me Rader had always hoped it would
be. Just the way I’d always imagined he dreamed about.
One of Landwehr’s detectives sat behind the wheel, and the car
sped off toward I-135, racing back toward the Epic Center in downtown
Wichita where the FBI had offices. An interrogation room on
the fourth floor was about to get very busy.